In Your Dreams (Falling #4)(64)

“Hey,” Houston says, taking the final steps down the stairs into the living room. The house is full, and everything here just smells different—like the way a home is supposed to smell. Murphy’s house smells like this. I’m thinking about her. I wasn’t supposed to do that, but I am.

“So, Houston says someone important actually hired you to come work for them,” Paige says, nestling next to Leah. Houston sits on the edge of the coffee table between us both not even phased by our banter.

“Yeah,” I say, and I know I don’t sound as cocky as Paige expects me to or as defensive and ready to spar as Houston anticipates. Paige quirks a brow, and Houston looks between us both.

His eyes settle on me, and before I can open my mouth to fill him in, my phone buzzes with a call. I pull it out to see my sister Annalissa’s name. I watch each ring until the fourth one falls short and she goes into voicemail. I push my phone into my pocket and look at my friend.

“Murphy came in to record,” I shrug.

Houston doesn’t react, instead lowering his brow and resting back on his hands, studying me.

“We have chairs, Houston. Get your rear end off my table,” his mom shouts from the kitchen.

“Yeah, don’t be such a Neanderthal,” I tease, not really wanting to talk about Murphy.

Houston frowns at me, but moves to the couch next to Leah and Paige.

“Murphy came in,” he gets back to it right away.

I nod.

“And you’re not boasting about the big score, beaming with your amazing greatness, bragging…”

I cut him off before his choice of verbs continues to disintegrate.

“She’s not working with me. John wanted her with Gomez. He’s…he’s probably the smart choice,” I say, careful not to sound as bitter and sad as I feel. I’m happy that my phone is ringing again so at least I don’t have to see the expression on Houston’s face. He knows landing Murphy was important to me, but I’m pretty sure he also has some semblance of an idea that I’m also a little into her.

A lot into her.

And more than scoring professionally, I wanted to be there to see her fly.

I’m out of my comfort zone. I like a girl, and I don’t deserve her, and I’m going to end it at that. The buzz in my pocket comes again, interrupting. This time it’s my other sister calling, and I’m hit with that familiar clenching feeling in my stomach that I get when my sisters aren’t going to stop. This is how they wear me down. It’s effective—or at least it was, when I was a teenager, or when I was ten and I didn’t want to clean my room. This thing is much bigger, which means their attempts are probably going to be even more relentless. I push the power button to turn my phone off and step into the kitchen, grabbing a Coke from my surrogate family’s fridge.

“Who’s Murphy?” Paige asks, and my mind works fast to have a witty answer that will send her in the wrong direction. But I’m not on my game it seems, and Houston beats me to it.

“She’s this girl that dear Casey seems to be quite smitten with,” he says.

“Dude… seriously…smitten?” I say, pulling the tab on my Coke and moving it to my lips fast to catch the fizz bubbling along the top. “Why do you have to choose * words?”

Joyce’s hand finds the back of my head fast. I swear, that woman is a ninja.

“Sorry, Mrs. Orr,” I say, rubbing where she swatted me. I have a permanent bruise there from her church-loving violence.

“Ugh, is she some new conquest of yours?” Paige says, making all of the assumptions I figured she would.

“Yep,” I answer, just hoping to leave it at that.

Houston’s eyes narrow as he cocks his head and smirks, parting his lips about to blow my secret wide open for his vulture girlfriend to pick apart and make me feel like a sad, smitten, pathetic * when his phone rings out loud. He points at me with one hand while pulling his phone out with the other.

Lucky bastard. That’s what he’s saying with that grin.

“This is Houston,” he answers, and I mock him while he cups his ear, trying to listen to the other line.

Paige steps up in front of me, prepared to take her boyfriend’s place in grilling me over the new girl, when Houston commands my attention.

“Case,” he says, phone now at his side.

His expression is dour.

I know without asking.

My sisters have called him.

The time to run has come to an end.





Murphy


“So this is it? You’re legit now?” my best friend says while honking at someone who apparently cut her off.

Sam is the size of a Polly Pocket doll—wafer thin and reaching to my nose if she stands on her tippy toes. Her personality, however, makes her simply feel bigger. Her voice is loud; she’s brimming with confidence; her blue eyes even turn me on, and her blond hair has always been on my wish list of wants.

Well, no, actually. Not always. When I started dyeing my hair colors other than the dirty dishwater one that naturally sprouts from my head, I fell in love with my trusses. My hair is the one thing that I have absolute faith in, and it comes out of a bottle I buy with a coupon at the drug store.

“This isn’t anything, Sam. This is a song deal. Which makes it even more stressful, because what if it isn’t good enough? What if…”